"Huh!" Simon grunted gravely. "Mebbyso white man; mebbyso sitkum Siwash."
"Half-breed nothing!" Farwell declared. "Straight white, I tell you. Now get ahead on the trail."
But whatever Simon's skill as a trailer, it availed little. In half a mile the hoofprints merged with many others in a beaten track, and so were lost. Simon halted.
"Halo mamook!" said he, signifying that he had done his possible. The fact was so self-evident that Farwell could not gainsay it.
"That's an easy five for you," he grumbled. "We might as well get back, Keeler. I never took any stock in that old buck, anyway. He's a gold brick, like all the rest of them."
But Simon, when they had gone, kept along the beaten track. And shortly he came to where McCrae had turned the buckboard around. Simon, after examining the tracks, took pains to efface them entirely; after which he ambled on, his usually grave countenance illumined by a grin.
Following the road, peering narrowly at either side, he finally came in sight of Talapus Ranch. Halting, he surveyed the fields.
The ditches of Talapus were once more running rap-full; and Donald McCrae, his son, and half a dozen men were busy with shovels and hoes turning the water down among the young grain in marks already prepared which followed the natural slope of the land; taking care that the little rivulets should be of sufficient strength to run the length of the field, but not so strong as to wash out the soil; adjusting the flow to a nicety with miniature dams of sods and stones.
Old Simon rode slowly along the ditch until he came to where Sandy McCrae was working.
"Hello, Simon!" said the latter carelessly. "How you makin' it this morning? You keeping skookum?"